Tonality Mood-Any Secret?

[cyrus]

Hello All,
I think my question is more related to science and physiology but please tell me your opinion.
In simple words the question is: Why all the Major pieces are not composed in Cmaj and all the Minor ones in Amin?

The reason is that the line of melody and modulations and every other thing within a piece are all a set of intervals. So a piece in G#maj which contains several sharps (and makes many difficulties for composer and players ) can be transfered to Cmaj without any change (at least apparently). So why the composer has chosen G#maj? Why not Ebmaj? or any other Major?

I think you might tell me that it's like light green and heavy green that both are greens but...
Maybe you have heard that "Life is like a piano. Black keys are for sad times and white keys for happy hours, both of which should exist to make a piece of life"! What's the reality behind this quote? Why black keys give the listener the sense of sadness?

Please let me know some keywords about this question, if any, to search google and tell me if you have read any scientific paper that reported an investigation about tonalities and their effect on human mind.
Thanks
Cyrus

[stevel]

Originally Posted by cyrus

Hello All,
I think my question is more related to science and physiology but please tell me your opinion.
In simple words the question is: Why all the Major pieces are not composed in Cmaj and all the Minor ones in Amin?

The reason is that the line of melody and modulations and every other thing within a piece are all a set of intervals. So a piece in G#maj which contains several sharps (and makes many difficulties for composer and players ) can be transfered to Cmaj without any change (at least apparently). So why the composer has chosen G#maj? Why not Ebmaj? or any other Major?

I think you might tell me that it's like light green and heavy green that both are greens but...
Maybe you have heard that "Life is like a piano. Black keys are for sad times and white keys for happy hours, both of which should exist to make a piece of life"! What's the reality behind this quote? Why black keys give the listener the sense of sadness?

Please let me know some keywords about this question, if any, to search google and tell me if you have read any scientific paper that reported an investigation about tonalities and their effect on human mind.
Thanks
Cyrus

There are multiple reasons Cyrus.

The first is that music evolved long before the concepts of Major and Minor had been established. For 1000 years music used Modes - each of which had a different starting note (Finalis) and each which had a different character.

By the time Major and Minor come along there's already a well-established practice of having different "keys" - what were called Mutation and like modulation.

Another reason is one of practicality. The Piano is not the only instrument in the world! C Major might have no sharps or flats, but to a Violinist it doesn't matter because there are no black or white keys. For many string players, keys in which open strings can be used are favored (especially in guitar for example).

Furthermore, even though you can play all the white keys in C Major on Piano, that's not completely idiomatic. If you notice, Romantic period composers like Chopin and later tend to favor keys like B Major, or Db Major (among others of course). This is because it puts the longer fingers on the black keys, and the shorter thumb on the white keys - a much more comfortable playing position!

Yet another reason is that people believed in some eras that different keys had different "moods" or "feels". For example, G Major was considered to be "Pastoral" while C minor was dark and brooding. A minor was "stark" and D minor was warmer than that.

This may have something to do with tunings used in the Baroque era when this kind of thinking was common but our modern 12tet tuning system has eliminated those differences between keys for most modern listeners (who do not have perfect pitch or good long-term relative pitch).

Finally, composers never choose G# Major! It's Ab major, and it's not a difficult key to play in.

Furthermore, most classical style pieces modulate within the piece, so at some point you're going to be using sharps and flats, so there's no reason to be lazy and avoid them. It's really not that hard to play in other keys, you just have to learn it.

HTH,
Steve

[ttw]

Tessitura. Not all singers have Yma Sunac's range.

Even on a piano, there's a subtle change in sound on things like melody+chords. If the chords are kept in the middle of the piano, the voicings may change.

[eyesore]

Originally Posted by ttw

Tessitura. Not all singers have Yma Sunac's range.

Even on a piano, there's a subtle change in sound on things like melody+chords. If the chords are kept in the middle of the piano, the voicings may change.

Yep, and this is why this

Originally Posted by stevel

Yet another reason is that people believed in some eras that different keys had different "moods" or "feels".

can even be true now, despite the fact that

Originally Posted by stevel

our modern 12tet tuning system has eliminated those differences between keys

but how a piece will sound in various keys is dependent on the piece in question.

You might have to completely re-orchestrate a piece to make it work in a new key. A flute moved down toward it's lower register can become inaudible while an oboe becomes obnoxious. Say you had a piece in C with double basses sometimes playing the low C which is their bottom note. Now imagine this piece in Bflat. you can't just move everything down a step, because the basses won't go any lower. Moving the rest of the bassline down and that note up could ruin the flow, and if you move the whole line UP, you've just lost a whole lot of frequency content from the bottom end of the piece, which often means a much wimpier effect to me. And what if you had say cellos doubling that line an octave above? If there was a vocal in the piece it would most like take the step down rather than the 7th up. What if you had piccolo playing in the upper extreme of its register? You just lost an octave of the frequency spread, and it may be more congested overall. Etc...

Some things I have written sound good in C. Some would really suffer.

Take your favorite song, and then try to sing it in the key a tritone away from the original key, since that represents. the largest contrast in the diatonic system. A lot different, huh? An intense vocal moved down suddenly becomes weak and moved up impossible, thin or shrill.

Originally Posted by cyrus

I think you might tell me that it's like light green and heavy green that both are greens but...

Nope. Won't even necessarily both be green. Could be as extreme as red and green. Especially when transposing from keys as far apart in pitch as the Ab Major and E flat major of your example.

Originally Posted by cyrus

What's the reality behind this quote?

Nothing. It's not true. It's just as untrue as the idea that major = happy and minor = sad, etc.

Originally Posted by cyrus

Why black keys give the listener the sense of sadness?

They don't anymore than the white keys can. It's the composer's job to craft the music in such a way as to create such responses in the listener, not a note or a chord or a key or a scale, etc. And context matters at least as much

All the black keys alone form a pentatonic scale, and you can use it in 5 different modes depending on what note you start on. "Amazing Grace" is a pentatonic tune, but if what you said was true and you played it on the black keys, I guess it couldn't be a happy tune anymore, despite the lyrics.

And the white keys give you all 7 diatonic modes of C. If a composer can't get all kinds of moods out of that, well...

Originally Posted by stevel

Furthermore, most classical style pieces modulate within the piece, so at some point you're going to be using sharps and flats, so there's no reason to be lazy and avoid them. It's really not that hard to play in other keys, you just have to learn it.

+1

Originally Posted by stevel

Another reason is one of practicality. The Piano is not the only instrument in the world! C Major might have no sharps or flats, but to a Violinist it doesn't matter because there are no black or white keys. For many string players, keys in which open strings can be used are favored (especially in guitar for example).

Right on. Wind players often prefer flat keys, and string players sharp keys.

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Oh, and we can't forget about transposing instruments. When your piano is playing in C, a horn player is reading his/her music in G, and a bflat trumpet player is reading it in D

[klasaine]

I would imagine that putting things in 'different keys' evolved very slowly.
Pre, I guess what we in the west would call Western Music, when tunes were written for specific instruments (carved flutes, lyres and early string instruments that were not chromatic) they were all in the key of the instrument. A lot like culturally specific music even written today. Highland bagpipes come to mind. It's a (very sharp) Bb mixolydian intrument. Most of the pieces are in Bb mixolydian (though the notation is in A mixo - the actual pitch has evolved ever upward and it's at about Bb=492), Ab, Eb or C minor. They do of course 1/2 finger a few notes but for all intents and puposes that instrument is key specific. The Armenian duduk is another. Recorders are also key specific and not chromatic.

So I guess my point is that ultimately, over time, song writers and composers got bored with being in just one key and an evolution towards more tonal chromatic options on these early intruments became inevitable adding valves, shanks (slides) and keys. Ultimately culminating with our equal tempered (12tet) system.